Race/Riot/Rebellion: Rethinking “Rule of Law” in Times of Mass Protest

• In Event: Dangerous Desires: Dreams of Otherness

Abstract

Theorized foremost in its relation to questions of political legitimacy, “rule of law” is commonly understood to mark the boundary between licit and illicit forms of violence. It redeems state violence thought necessary to preserve social order, that is, by distinguishing it from violence it names as criminal excess. As such, rule of law often is seen as a threshold for disagreement in plural societies. However, in the wake of mass protests against police killings of Black people, and attacks on the U.S. Capitol Building by members of right-wing militias and the “patriot” movement – it may be necessary to reconsider this view. This paper examines the visual and narrative conventions of “rule of law” as they have been used to render police violence and popular protest as mirror images of one another, thereby inviting the condemnation of both on equal terms, as violent departures from ordinary life. My goal is to show how this commonsense view mistakenly figures social order as if in opposition to racial violence, and so misunderstands the very nature of structural racism. In place of this view, I follow Robert Cover in theorizing law as a shared narrative practice, calling attention both to its world-making capacities and to its origins outside of courts and legislatures, in the streets, in protests and social movements.

Author

• Mark Golub, Scripps College